Macb. I'll call upon you straight; abide within. It is concluded:-Banquo, thy soul's flight, If it find heaven, must find it out to-night. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. Another Room. Enter LADY MACBETH, and a Servant. Lady M. Is Banquo gone from court? Serv. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night. Lady M. Say to the king, I would attend his leisure For a few words. Serv. Lady M. Madam, I will. [Exit. Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content : 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy, Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy. Enter МАСВЕТН. How now, my lord? why do you keep alone, Macb. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it; She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly: Better be with the dead, Whom we, to gain our place2, have sent to peace, 1 Sorriest, i. e. most melancholy. 2 The first folio reads peace; the second folio, place; and there can be no doubt that the last was the word the poet intended. He would hardly have written to gain our peace." Macbeth gained his place by the murder of Duncan, but certainly did not in any sense of the word. obtain peace, Than on the torture of the mind to lie In restless ecstasy 3. Duncan is in his grave; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Can touch him further! Lady M. Come on; gentle my lord, Sleek o'er your rugged looks; be bright and jovial Among your guests to-night. Macb. So shall I, love; and So, I pray, be you: Let your remembrance apply to Banquo: Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue : Unsafe the while, that we Must lave our honours in these flattering streams ; Disguising what they are 5. You must leave this. 3 Ecstasy in its general sense signifies any violent emotion or alienation of the mind. The old dictionaries render it a trance, a dampe, a crampe. Vide note on the Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3. • Present him eminence, i. e. do him the highest honour. 5 The sense of this passage appears to be:-"It is a sign that our royalty is unsafe, when it must descend to flattery, and stoop to dissimulation." 6 Ritson has observed that "Nature's copy" alludes to copyhold tenure; in which the tenant holds an estate for life, having nothing but the copy of the rolls of his lord's court to show for it. A life-hold tenure may well be said to be not eternal. The subsequent speech of Macbeth, in which he says, "Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond," confirms this explanation. Many of Shakespeare's allusions are to legal customs. 7 That is, the beetle borne along the air by its shards or scaly wings. Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note. Lady M. What's to be done? Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And, with thy bloody and invisible hand, Which keeps me pale9!-Light thickens; and the crow Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse 11. Steevens had the merit of first showing that shard or sherd was the ancient word for a scale or outward covering, a case or sheath: as appears from the following passage cited by him, from Gower's Confessio Amantis, b. vi. fol. 138: "She sigh, her thought a dragon tho, Whose sherdes shynen as the sonne." And again in book v. speaking of a serpent:- It held all edge tool without." In Cymbeline Shakespeare applies this epithet again to the beetle:"We find The sharded beetle in a safer hold Than is the full-winged eagle." 8 i. e. blinding; to seel up the eyes of a hawk was to close them by sewing the eyelids together. 9 So in Cymbeline: "Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray." 10 Thus in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess :"Fold your flocks up, for the air 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Already his great course hath run." Spenser in the Shepherd's Calendar has:— "The welkin thicks apace." The poet has shown himself a close observer of nature in marking the return of the rooks to their nest trees when the day is drawing to a close. Virgil has a very natural description of the same circumstance: "E pastu decedens agmine magno Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis.' See note on King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 1. p. 484. Thou marvell'st at my words; but hold thee still; Things, bad begun, make strong themselves by ill : So, pr'ythee, go with me. [Exeunt. A Park or Lawn, with a Gate leading to the Palace. Enter three Murderers. 1 Mur. But who did bid thee join with us? 3 Mur. Macbeth. 2 Mur. He needs not our mistrust; since he delivers Our offices, and what we have to do, To the direction just. 1 Mur. Then stand with us. The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day: Now spurs the lated traveller apace, To gain the timely inn; and near approaches The subject of our watch. 3 Mur. Ban. [Within.] Give us a light there, ho! 2 Mur. Hark! I hear horses. Then 'tis he; the rest His horses go about. That are within the note of expectation, 1 Mur. 3 Mur. Almost a mile: but he does usually, So all men do, from hence to the palace gate Make it their walk. 1 Mur. Let it come down. [Assaults BANQUO. Ban. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou may'st revenge. O slave! [Dies. Fleance escapesa. 3 Mur. Who did strike out the light? 1 Mur. Was't not the way? 3 Mur. There's but one down: the son is fled. 2 Mur. We have lost best half of our affair. 1 Mur. Well, let's away, and say how much is done. SCENE IV. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSSE, LENOX, Mach. You know your own degrees, sit down: at first 1 And last, the hearty welcome. Lords. Thanks to your majesty. Macb. Ourself will mingle with society, And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state; but, in best time, Lady M. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends; For my heart speaks, they are welcome. Fleance, after the assassination of his father, fled into Wales, where, by the daughter of the prince of that country, he had a son named Walter, who afterwards became Lord High Steward of Scotland, and from thence assumed the name of Sir Walter Steward. From him, in a direct line, King James I. was descended; in compliment to whom Shakespeare has chosen to describe Banquo, who was equally concerned with Macbeth in the murder of Duncan, as innocent of that crime. At first and last. Johnson with great plausibility proposes to read "To first and last." 2 Keeps her state, i. e. continues in her chair of state. A state was a royal chair with a canopy over it. |